Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

Welcome to the Masters Swim Relay Optimiser (hereafter referred to as "the Application," "the Service," "we," "our," or "us"). We are deeply committed to protecting your personal data, ensuring operational transparency, and maintaining rigorous standards of data governance. This Privacy Policy is designed to detail the mechanisms, protocols, and policies we employ to collect, store, process, and safeguard your personal information when you navigate our platform, utilize our relay optimization calculators, or subscribe to our premium services.

By accessing, browsing, or otherwise interacting with our application, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and consented to the data collection, storage, and processing practices described in this comprehensive document. If you do not agree with the terms outlined herein, please immediately discontinue the use of our services.

2. Information We Collect

Our application is designed with a user-centric data model that minimizes centralized storage to enhance user privacy. We categorize the information we collect into three distinct areas:

• Authentication and Account Data:To create an account and access the application's synchronization features, we integrate Clerk, a third-party secure identity provider. When you register, Clerk securely handles your credentials, email address, display name, and login history. We do not store your passwords on our own servers. Clerk also manages session state and provides security analytics to protect against unauthorized account access.
• Swimmer Rosters & Timing Constraints: To optimize relay lineups, the application requires data including swimmer names, gender classifications, age categories, stroke seed times, and specific event constraints. By default, this entire dataset is stored exclusively client-side in your web browser's local sandbox using the localStorage key mastersRelayRoster. Because this database exists solely in your browser's local cache, this data is never transmitted to, stored on, or processed by our servers, except when you explicitly use the shareable link feature or backend backup mechanisms.
• Payment & Billing Details:If you upgrade to our Pro subscription tier, billing processes are handled entirely by Stripe, a secure, PCI-compliant payment processor. Stripe processes your credit card numbers, billing addresses, and payment transaction tokens. We only store billing status flags (such as whether you are a "pro" tier member) on your Clerk user metadata profile to unlock application features; we never store or have direct access to your raw credit card numbers or security credentials.

3. Cookies and Analytics

To support the ongoing maintenance and development of our application, we utilize cookies, tracking pixels, and analytics frameworks to evaluate performance and deliver features:

• Google Analytics: We integrate Google Analytics to capture aggregated, non-personally identifiable traffic metrics. This includes recording page views, session duration, browser languages, device categories, and user actions (such as starting the relay optimization algorithm or importing a roster via CSV). This information is utilized solely to analyze user behavior, refine the user interface, and optimize server response times.
• Google AdSense:For users on our Free Tier, we serve third-party advertisements via Google AdSense. Google AdSense utilizes cookies (including the DoubleClick cookie) to serve advertisements tailored to your interests, search behaviors, and visits across the internet. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to our users based on their visit to our site and other sites on the Internet. You can easily opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google's Ads Settings page or utilizing standard browser extensions that block tracking cookies.

4. Data Sharing and Portability

We believe you own your data. We do not sell, rent, lease, or distribute your private swimmer rosters or account details to third-party marketing brokers or external organizations.

The application supports data portability through our "Share Program" functionality. When you click the share button, all current swimmer names, times, age groups, and pinned relay assignments are encoded into a standard, URL-safe Base64 string that is appended as a query parameter (e.g., ?meet=...). Any person who obtains this link can view and reconstruct your exact meet roster. We strongly advise users to share these links only with trusted team managers, swimmers, or coaches. Because this data is encoded directly into the URL, it does not persist on our central databases.

5. Security Protocols

We implement a variety of technical and organizational security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information. All communication between your web browser and our application is encrypted in transit using industry-standard Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols. User authentication sessions are managed via signed tokens provided by Clerk.

However, because your primary swimmer database is stored directly in your local browser cache (localStorage), the security of this data is dependent on the security of your device. If you use a shared or public computer, other individuals with access to that hardware may be able to read or modify your local swim roster. We strongly recommend that you secure your local devices with passwords, sign out of your account when using public terminals, and clear your browser's history and cookies when you are finished.

6. Changes to this Policy

We reserve the right to modify, amend, or update this Privacy Policy at any time to reflect changes in our legal obligations, software updates, or standard data protection policies. Any modifications will be updated directly on this page. The date of the most recent revision will always be displayed at the top of this policy under the "Last Updated" banner.

We encourage users to periodically review this page to stay informed about how we are protecting their information. Your continued use of the application following the posting of modifications indicates your formal acceptance of the updated policy terms.

7. Contact Information

We value your feedback and are committed to addressing any concerns you may have regarding this Privacy Policy or our data governance practices. If you have any inquiries, suggestions, or requests regarding your personal data (such as requesting the permanent deletion of your Clerk authentication account details), please visit our Support & Feedback page by navigating to our dedicated Contact form.

You may also contact our support staff directly through the communication channels linked there. We make every effort to respond to all compliance and privacy inquiries within forty-eight business hours. Please visit our Support & Feedback page for further details.